A Full Review of the Yonex Aerosensa 50 (AS-50) Shuttlecocks

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Here is the FULL BadmintonBites review of the popular Yonex Aerosensa 50 shuttlecocks, also known as the AS-50. If you want a guide to other Yonex shuttlecocks, check out our Complete Guide to Yonex Badminton Shuttlecocks (Feathered), the Complete Guide to Yonex Badminton Shuttlecocks (Synthetic), or our equipment page.

The AS-50, which uses 100% goose feather, has been my go to shuttlecock for quite some time now so I have a good amount of experience playing with them. In fact, I usually buy a bunch of tubes of them at a time since I know that I’ll be using them all eventually. You can tell from the featured image that I had some fun with the set up. Here’s another one I made just for fun too.

Even though I naturally liked the AS-50, I never really put it to the test – until now. This will be my 2nd shuttlecock review, after the popular Yonex Aerosensa 30 (AS-30), whose full review you can see over here. Similar to the AS-30 review, I will be doing the same exact tests, which are described below.

I will be judging the shuttlecock using flight, consistency, and durability as attributes.
To determine flight and consistency, I will look at tests 1 and 2. To determine durability, I will use tests 3 and 4.

For a quick preview, here are the averages of the tests:

Flight: 4.5/5
Consistency: 4.25/5
Durability: 4.25/5

Before I get into the tests, I’d like to note that I used AS-50s that had a speed of 3. You can see in the below table that tubes with a speed of 3 are ideal for temperatures between 22 and 28 degrees Celsius (71.6 to 82.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

The day that I tested AS-50s, it was 22.8 degrees Celsius (73 degrees Fahrenheit), which is at the lower range of the recommended temperature for shuttlecocks of speed 3.

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Specifications

The AS-50 has the following attributes:

Singles High Service Test

For the service test, I took a whole tube of 12 AS-50s and did as similar of a singles service stroke as I could. As you can see from the picture below, the length of where I hit was fairly consistent, with most of them being past the back line. There was some variation in the horizontal and vertical positions of where the AS-50s landed but I’d say that I’m pretty happy with it. It’s fairly likely that there were small human errors in my service that are of no fault to the AS-50s.

Given that 8 of the 12 AS-50s I hit landed past the back line, it shows that the AS-50 glides through the air quite easily. I really didn’t have much trouble hitting it high and far. If I were playing singles though, I’d want to change up my serve a bit to have a little less power so that it lands in.

Flight: 4.5/5
Consistency: 4/5

Speed Test

In the speed test, I hit 12 AS-50s from the back of the court using a slight underhand drive motion with my forehand and saw how far the shuttlecock landed. Overall, the shuttlecocks landed pretty uniformly right before the doubles service line. Of the 12, 9 of them pretty much traveled the same distance and 3 of them were a bit short.

I can’t really fault the AS-50s much, they flew quite well and were very consistent.

Consistency: 4.5/5
Flight: 4.5/5

Clear Test

In the clear test, I did a total of 200 clears. I took 3 pictures at different angles after 25, 50, 100, and 200 clears to give you an idea of how beat up the shuttlecock gets at each stage. Take a look below.

Here’s a brand new AS-50:

Absolutely beautiful! Time to ruffle up those feathers.

Here’s the AS-50 after 25 clears:

We can see that some of the feathers have started to roughen up but the AS-50 flies just like new still.

Here’s the AS-50 after 50 clears:

The tops of 2 of the feathers are now torn off and each of the feathers have some small gaps or ruffles in them. It still flies quite well and I don’t have any trouble clearing it.

Here’s the AS-50 after 100 clears:

The AS-50 has started slowing down a bit at this point, but I would consider it to still be a great warm up shuttlecock. While some of the feather tops are gone, most of them are in tact. None of the feathers are completely gone so it still spins well and doesn’t wobble. Not bad at all.

Here’s the AS-50 after 200 clears:

Now we see that 3 of the 16 feathers are 1/3rd gone with the rest being ruffled up but still in tact. I could still hit around with the shuttlecock decently well but you can tell that it’s been used quite a bit at this point.

Before I did the clear test, I measured the AS-50’s feather diameter and cork circumference and I also measured it again at the end. Here are the results:

The feather diameter decreased by .1 cm (.04 in), or a 1.5% difference after 200 clears. The cork circumference, on the other hand, remained the same.

I can’t fault the AS-50 much at all for its durability in the clear test. It delivered quite well and lasted the whole way. The natural wear and tear is expected out of any shuttlecock after so many hits. Until I find a better benchmark, I’ll have to give it a perfect score.

Durability: 5/5

Smash Test

In the smash test, I did a total of 100 smashes and 100 lifts. I took 3 pictures at different angles after 10, 25, 50, and 100 smashes to give you an idea of how beat up the shuttlecock gets at each stage. Take a look below.

Small disclaimer first. The first time I tried the test with the AS-50, one of the feathers broke after 2 smashes! This has NEVER happened to me before when using a new AS-50 so I was thinking it was a one off freak accident.

Since I had so much experience with the AS-50, I knew this wasn’t normal and I started off fresh with a new AS-50 and didn’t have the same issue. Let’s get on with the smash test now.

Here’s a brand new AS-50:

Here’s the AS-50 after 10 lifts and 10 smashes:

You can tell that one of the feathers has already started to have a hole at the top of it and some other feathers were ruffled up a bit. It still flies pretty well though.

Here’s the AS-50 after 25 lifts and 25 smashes:

You can see a lot more holes in the feathers and also with feather splinters sticking out of it. It seems to be deteriorating a lot faster from smashes and lifts than it did from just clears.

Here’s the AS-50 after 50 lifts and 50 smashes:

More of the same thing here. You can see even more feather splinters and even more feathers destroyed, especially from the side view. However, I do have to say that the shuttlecock is still quite uniform and doesn’t wobble much, which is a big plus. All of the feather stems are still standing and not broken.

Here’s the AS-50 after 100 lifts and 100 smashes:

The AS-50 became pretty difficult to lift now as all of the feathers are now very used with one of them being almost completely gone. It’s half falling apart at this stage but no feather stems broke and it still doesn’t wobble.

Similar to the clear test, we also measured AS-50’s feather diameter and cork circumference before and after the smash test. Here are the results:

The results were the same as in the clear test. The feather diameter decreased by .1 cm (.04 in), or a 1.5% difference after 100 smashes and the cork circumference remained the same.

Overall, the AS-50 did above average in the smash test but certainly started to ruffle up a lot faster than it did in the clear test. It spun quite well the whole time and didn’t wobble.

Durability: 3.5/5

Summary

Overall, the AS-50 is an amazing option for recreational and tournament level play. While it is usually on the more expensive end of the shuttlecock prince spectrum, it brings lots of quality and bang for its buck.

Our scores, once again, are as follows:

Singles High Service Test
Flight: 4.5/5
Consistency: 4/5

Speed Test
Flight: 4.5/5
Consistency: 4.5/5

Clear Test
Durability: 5/5

Smash Test
Durability: 3.5/5

Overall
Flight: 4.5/5
Consistency: 4.25/5
Durability: 4.25/5

Where Can I Buy Yonex Aerosensa 50 (AS-50) Shuttlecocks?

You can buy AS-50s over on Amazon and Yumo.

Amazon has a surprising number of badminton products available so it’s worth it to check the price there with other places. You can find the AS-50s over here.

Yumo, on the other hand, is a small but amazing store based in Canada which specializes in many badminton products. For this reason, they have even more badminton specific products than Amazon does. They even have their own YouTube channel which is all about badminton. Their dedication to badminton is why we recommend our readers to get badminton products from Yumo, especially if you’re in Canada or the United States for the possibility of free shipping.

You can find AS-50s on Yumo over here.

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